Mary Immaculate College will host the fourth annual conference of the SPHE Networks on Saturday, 10 November. Keynote speakers at the event include academic, writer and advocate Sinéad Burke and Professor of Equality at UCD Professor Kathleen Lynch.

The conference aims to bring together academics, teachers, student teachers, postgraduate students, health professionals, policy-makers, NGOs and the wider education community, to engage in dialogue about diversities in today’s society with a particular focus on how it is interpreted and addressed within the SPHE curriculum.

Speaking ahead of the event, MIC lecturer and Chair of the SPHE network, Dr Margaret Nohilly, said: “This SPHE Network conference is entitled ‘Diversities: Interpretations in the Context of SPHE’ and aims at engaging in an in-depth reflection on the concept of diversities in the context of 21st century Ireland and beyond. Using Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE) as the critical lens, many perspectives on diversities will be explored with a view to determining how they are interpreted in, and supported by, the SPHE curriculum.”

The conference will include keynote and paper presentations, workshops and poster displays. Keynote presentations at the conference will invite the audience to engage with the complexities embedded within the SPHE concept. Parallel sessions and workshops will explore and deconstruct the key themes, while participants will also be provided with the opportunity to review a variety of poster presentations on the theme.

According to Dr Carol O’Sullivan, lecturer at MIC and member of the conference organising committee: “The SPHE Network conference will appeal to all with an interest in how the concept of diversities is evolving and expanding in current society. The significance of the theme for ongoing reviews of the Irish curriculum, including aspects of SPHE, forms an important backdrop to the deliberations of the 2018 conference.”